Sent the remaining $500 on Tuesday to the SUV loan...hopefully by the end of the week it will post....and then I can post the loan is actually paid off! Yahoo!

Yes...it will be very exciting as we are paying my car off! I plan to send the payment on Tuesday and it should take just a couple of days for it to process.

Then...on to DH's car loan! For Feb, I plan to send about $350. This will put us at just under $5000. Then the plan is to send $500 per month and that should have the car paid off at the end of 2013.

With the extra money we will be saving, we plan to send extra on the mortgage...our current payment is $918, so we will make additional principal payment starting in March that will make it an even $1000 per month for now. Perhaps in 2014 after DH's car is paid off, we can send even more.

We would also like to increase retirement savings. We will be evaluating that too.

My gift to myself? Better health this year....AND.... being debt free except for the mortgage by the end of the year...I am so excited for next week. We will be paying my car off!

Oh...and we had a no spend day yesterday!

Except for the mortgage!

My car will be paid off in the middle of February.

We have been paying extra every month on DH's car, but, in February, will start sending $500 a month. This is more than double the actual payment required per month.

With my car being paid off, we are pondering what to do with the extra money every month.

Some idea's

More to savings
Extra to mortgage
Increase contributions to DH's 401K and/or my SEP IRA through work.

More than likely we will do a combo of these.

We will however, need to be thinking ahead about our vacation to Kauai at the end of July. We will put the vacation expenses on our Wells Fargo card to earn points towards principal mortgage rewards, but will definately want to pay the card off as we are booking hotel/condo, air, and car rental in the next few months.

And the SUV loan will be paid OFF!

I sent $500 to Ford on Saturday.

SO looking forward to mid February when I send the last $500 to them.

Since we have paid more on this loan, than was actually due, this means we paid this loan off in under 3 years (SUV was purchased May 2010)

Next up....hoping to pay DH's car loan off by the end of the year....that one would be paid off even quicker than mine. His car was purchased in March 2012.

Well I feel silly! Don't know how we ever managed to not have AOL free...lol...anyway, as soon as DD2 gets her contacts switched over tonight, it is goodbye AOL. And it was actually $17.95 a month...so saving closer to $18 now.

When DH was switching our DISH billing from Capital One over to Wells Fargo (might as well get that 1% rebate), he noticed that he still had Starz at $13 a month. A while back, he really wanted it, but now that we have streaming Netflix, it seems a waste of money. He canceleld it yesterday. So all in all, we are now saving an additional $31 a month.

We also received our statement from the credit union for DH's car loan. Turns out, it was lower than expected. We are now at $5665. If we can send $475 a month, we can have this paid off at the end of the year! That would mean being debt free except for our mortgage.

Yipee!

Financial:

Pay off SUV loan of $1000. Should be able to accomplish by mid February.

Pay off Ford Focus loan: $6000.00.

Savings to $30,000

Pay before we leave: A trip to Washington DC this summer (July or Aug)

Increase DH's contribution to his 401K from 12% to 15%

I think these are all attainable....we will have to see what the early months bring in terms of DH's work....since work has been closed since 12/24, DH goes back tomorrow....who knows if and when they might announce a slow down....you never know with this company...it may not even happen at all.

More on personal goals in a seperate post

Happy New Year everyone!

That is how much we owe on DH's new car that was purchased in March....I sent a large payment last month to DH's car loan and thought we would be under $6K....well....guess I was close!

Only 2 more payments on the SUV loan and we are done! Can't wait for that day.

Then we hit DH's big time (as long as things are well with his work). We will at least, send $350 which is still more than the actual payment, but hope to send $500.

Until the SUV loan is paid off!

I sent $500 to the SUV loan which means we have only 3 more payments until it is paid off! About a year ago, we decided to double up on the payment so we could get it paid off sooner. I am so happy we have been able to keep this up. This means the loan will be paid off in under 3 years.

When DH bought a new car in March, it became even more important to get the SUV loan paid off.

I also sent $1400 to his car loan yesterday which will bring our balance just under $6000.

As soon as my car is paid off, we will be sending at least $500 on his, more if possible.

We have decided to just continue to pay the $500 we have been paying on the SUV loan and just pay it off in Feb 2013.

This still puts us paying the loan off in under 3 years.

Due to some rumours at DH's work (possible slow down/shut down over Christmas), we think it is best to hang onto the cash and just continue as normal. It would have been nice to start the year off with only 1 debt left, but that's ok....I think we have done pretty good so far.

If I end up getting a good Christmas bonus as I have in the past, we may consider putting that towards the loan. It wouldn't completely pay it off, but it would be close. Our office has gone through some changes this past summer, so we are not sure what to expect as far as a bonus. Hoping it will be the same as last year ($1200), but not going to put the cart before the horse.

We are now down to $2000. We would really like to pay this off by the end of the year.

This would mean sending $1000 for Nov and Dec. It is going to be tight but I think we can do it.

It would be so nice to go into the new year and be able to attack DH's car loan.

I think the goal for that would be to start sending at least $500 to that or possibly more since we won't have my loan any longer.

Fingers crossed we can do it!

September was a busy and spendy month. October looks to be the same. It will be nice to skip the October house payment as the refi closed at the end of Sept.

The big Sept expenses were:

$2100 to pre-pay property taxes for closing
$1300 for drainage work in the yard
$1000 to the SUV loan...so close to paying it off

October is bringing a very busy schedule and money will be spent. Here is what is on tap:

Oct 15th-17th Vegas! For our 25th anniversary...we already took the anniversary cruise in April but thought it would be fun to be somewhere on our actual anniversary (the 16th)...we found a great deal through SW Airlines for airfare and hotel. We will be staying at Paris....very excited...we have only been to Vegas once....when our kids were 4 and 7 1/2, we drove to Vegas and spent 4 nights there and had a blast...we are excited to go back and see how much it has changed. We booked 2 shows to see....Mystere by Cirque du Soleil (my pick) and Jersey Boys (dh's pick). For the most part, we plan to keep it low key and just sightsee...no real spending...we are also not gamblers to no temptation there. Just hoping for good weather.

Oct 23rd....DD2's senior night for varsity soccer.

Oct 24th....DD1's 21st b-day! Gifts still to be purchased.

Oct 27th...family b-day party for DD1

Oct 28th....another Cirque show with my sister

DD2 also brought home the catalogue for senior stuff...cap and gown and such....have to go through that this weekend as it is due back Tuesday.

We have nothing planned this weekend so it will be nice to relax and catch up!

Finally!

Actually, all we had to do was sign the paper to close the credit line and bring in the cashier's check for the property taxes.

We weren't going to close the credit line, but, US Bank wanted $250 to keep it open...basically to sign a piece of paper (the subordination) and lower it.... can you believe it? I bet you can! Yes, to sign one piece of paper and lower our available credit costs $250...ugh.

So we asked mortgage guy if we could get a credit line through Wells Fargo and he said yes....for no charge.

So that is what we are going to do....DH tried to get US Bank to waive the fee but they would not budge...stinkers!

This was done on Thursday afternoon and should close today....will be nice to be able to skip Oct's payment....we had a spendy Sept!

We are officially at $2500 on the SUV loan.....since we are refinancing (signing today in fact), we get to skip Oct's mortgage payment....that will be going to the SUV loan......we are so close!

I sent $1000 payment to Ford towards the SUV loan. That will bring us down to $2500! Pretty excited about that! We have been steadily paying $500 a month towards that loan and we are almost there! It will be paid off for sure by December, if not November...we purchased the vehicle in May of 2010 at a no interest loan, so we are pretty happy with where we are now.

Then...we hit the Focus balance HARD....just like we did for the SUV.

Sent $500 to the suv loan on 8/11/2012....new balance as reflected in the side bar is $3500. We have steadily been paying this down at $500 for quite a while now. We do plan on paying this off in Dec! At that time, we should owe $1500. We will send the regular $500 payment, plus the extra $1000 taken out of savings or with my Christmas bonus...then...it will be paid in full. I should add that this vehicle was purchased in May 2010 and is also a no interest loan.

We plan to hit DH's car loan very hard. I sent $750 on 8/17/2012 and that should take us down to just around $8000. Will need to wait for the statement as the interest rate is about 2% so I am not sure of the exact balance. We plan to sent at least $500 a month. We may possibly send even more as we have the extra cash.

I am excited! It will be nice to only be down to the 1 car loan and mortgage!

August 1st:

$3.00 coffee
$582.17 mastercard bill (paid in full)
$7.04 Home Depot (board for fence)
$15.95 (interest charge on equity line)

The last charge really makes me mad....we bought dd2 a car and wrote a check out of our equity line. The reason we did this is we had to wait for reimbursement from her ugtma account. We purchased the car on 7/2 and paid it in full on 7/12. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how and why there was a balance on that account when I looked online. When I called US Bank, they said they charge daily interest. Well that was news to us! If I would have known that, we would have paid for the car with our savings account and then just put the reimbursement check into savings. We haven't used that account in several years so it's possible we had forgotten about the daily interest. Lesson learned for the future!

Haven't felt much like blogging lately....but have been reading and commenting though!

June and July were somewhat spendy....we had money going in and money going out.

Out:
1. Bought dd2 a new bed frame and dresser for her b-day in early June (her bedstand had a broken leg...propped up by a brick and dresser was old and somewhat falling apart) These were unfinished as she wanted them painted black..her room is a pretty blue and her bedcovers are blue, black, white and a bit of silver...throw pillows match bedding...turned out great!

2. Bought a new curio cabinet from an upscale consignment store....bigger than the one we have had for years...not crammed anymore and it looks great on the wall we have it on.

3. DD2's wisdom teeth out ($437.00 our portion)

4. Vet bill for cat (exam and lab work)

5. Gift card for sister for b-day

In:

1. Sold old curio cabinet at upscale consignment store ($75 our proceeds)

2. Sold DD2's old dresser ($20)

3. DH sold 3 wheels off his old car ($100)

4. Reimbursement for wisdom teeth from dental account at work...seperate from flex spend acct($437)

5. Small amount from garage sale...mom, aunt, and sister had one a few weeks ago..we hardly had anything as we cleaned out before our cruise in April....but got rid of everything except 1 thing.

We have several upcoming expenses for Aug...senior pic's for dd2, high school registration, school soccer camp, and high school soccer registration. Also we have a "staycation" next week....have some day trips and an overnight trip to the beach and a family b-day celebration for great-nephew & bil (july b-days) and Dh who's b-day is Aug 10th.

Time to tighten down....Aug is looking very spendy!

DH and I have decided to refinance. We are currently at 4.8% and going down to 3.5% (and to a 15-yay!) with no out of pocket cost, except for a possible appraisal. Since we refinanced about 3 years ago, our mortgage broker said we might get away with an online appraisal for $75 vs $400 for an actual one. We considered going down even further to about 2.8% but that would cost approx $1800 plus the appraisal. Going to 3.5 will save approx $55 a month....going to 2.8 would save about $75. Since we are planning on selling in (hopefully) about 5 years, we think just going with the 3.5 is the best thing. Not sure we could recoup what we would have to pay by buying down points.

Anyway, we are now trying to decide what to do with the "extra" money we are saving.....throw it towards the mortgage? Or up the 401K's? Our mortgage is approximately $127,000

What would you do?

On a side note, if we went down to a 3.5 and a new 30 year mortgage, our payment would be cut almost in half of what it is now....lol. We decided NOT to do that mainly because it could be too tempting to have all that extra money hanging around every month. Sure, we could SAY we would use it wisely by paying down the house or upping the 401K's but it could get real comfortable having that extra cushion around.

Also, we will not throw it at the car loans....my car is now down to $4000 with no interest. DH's care is now down to $9100 with a very low rate (plus we pay extra on the loan every month anyway) and once mine is paid off, we will up his payment even further.

Thanks for your advice and opinions!

to the SUV loan! This now takes us below $5K! We sit at $4500.00!

Crazy! A facebook friend posted that it cost her $106 to fill her tank the other day! She drives a Suburban because she has 2 kids in sports and has to haul them and all of their stuff around.

To be fair, they probably need more space than a car....I spent many years hauling kids and sports equipment around myself. But....my small suv (Ford Escape) has done us just fine....before that, I had annother small suv...a Mazda Tribute.

They also have a sporting event across town this weekend....at least 30 miles each way and she joked that the tank would probably last the weekend and she would have to fill up again.

No thanks! Even though we have a new car payment with DH's new Focus, I am glad we did it.....it might not make sense now (having a car payment and all), but we are working to pay it off as quickly as we can...that and the fact that it gets 34 miles to the gallon is even better....hopefully within the next few months it will even be better.

To the SUV loan! We are getting this thing paid down SA friends!

$5000 to go!

Sent another $500 before we left for the cruise....we are now down to $5500!

Another $500 to the SUV loan! We are now down to $6000.00.

We decided to see if we can swing it and continue to send $500 on this loan even though we have dh's new vehicle loan which is $237/mo.

We hope to round his payment up to $300 to get a bit of a head start on paying that darn thing down.

As soon as the SUV loan is paid off we will be sending at least $500 to this loan.

At least it costs less to fill his tank now. He is getting about 30 miles to the gallon right now. He is hoping after 3-5K he will hit 40.

Portland Metro area: $3.50's to $3.75

How about you?

Ugh! I knew it was coming....

DH has been talking about a new car now for quite a while. His car was 6 years old and had $80,000 miles on it. He drives 40 miles roundtrip to work 5 days a week. With gas prices on the rise, he was wanting something more eficient. He got a Ford Foucus SE.

This weekend he finally did it....I have to admit, he got a great deal, but I am not excited about going back into debt. Luckily (or not?) we are only having to finance about $10,000. Looks like we will be getting a loan at a credit union at about 2.25%...not bad I guess, but I prefer 0% (that's what my loan is at)

The plan is to work at paying these off as quickly as possible. For quite some time now, we have been paying $500/mo on my loan....we are now at $6500....his payment will be around $230 so we decided to pay $300/mo on each car. As funds allow, we may try to send more on my car to get it paid off as soon as possible. These 2 car loans are the only debt other than our mortgage so I want to hit it hard!

to the SUV loan! $500 to be exact. We are now sitting at $7000.00 and we have only had the vehicle for 1 1/2 years. Yahoo! I checked their automated system this morning, and found, if we had to, a payment wouldn't have to be made until 3/2013 since we are so far ahead....don't worry....we will keep sending $500 a month as long as we are able.....I want this loan gone

This now brings us to oweing $8000.00.

We are hoping by the end of 2012 to have the loan paid off.

We bought the suv in March 2010 and it was a no interest loan so we are really making headway!

DH was paid on Friday and his paystub has finally reflected all of the overtime he has been putting in.

I was able to transfer some extra to savings which was nice.

I was also paid on Friday which was unexpected as I payday wasn't suppose to be until Monday. (I am paid on the 15th and either 30th/31st). I logged onto the bank account yesterday and was surprised at all of the money in there. I quickly saw I had been paid too. My office no longer does paystubs. We are able to log on to a secure site to view our pay, taxes, and pto accural time. It is a way to save all of that paper and nobody really cared if they had the actual stub or not. Of course, if we needed it for some reason, we are always able to get a hard copy. One less piece of paper to deal with.

Property taxes are due Nov 15th so the savings account will take a hit.

Credit card is due Nov 2nd and checking will take a hit.

Water/sewer and also garbage is due in Nov (we pay these 2 bills every other month). I guess it is nice we don't have to pay in Dec!

Dh has been able to get lots of overtime so that is definately going to help.

Don't think we are going to hit our savings goal of $25k by the end of the year

I am bummed but not too much....already thinking ahead to next years goals....